Many local residents of the island communities respectfully attended weddings and funerals of their Orkney relatives and friends; the joyous marryings and the melancholy buryings were occasions for them to collect in one place.
Over the years, various ceremonies of Orcadian life were recorded by the local parish church at the little hamlet of Orphir. There in the Orphir Church, the fashionable christening of HARY and ELSPETH (SCLATER) HAY's infant daughter was dutifully written down as having occurred on Tuesday, May 22, 1798. After the passage of 23 more Orphir summers, the young lady, BARBARA, was wed to a 25-year-old native of the parish, ROBERT, son of MAGNUS and CATHERINE (GARRIOCK) TAYLOR, on Thursday, November 22, 1821. Perhaps they were married by a preacher in the Orphir Church or at some relative's home, although Scottish law also allowed blacksmiths to perform such ceremonies in their shops. Orcadians gaily honoring their neighbors or kinfolk at such social gatherings commonly enjoyed a little bit of usquebaugh, "the water of life," Scotch whisky provided especially for the occasion. |
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